Best Fitbit to track skiing?

CariTJR

I currently have a Charge, but I went skiing today and it didn't track it, which is the best Fitbit to track this, would I be better off with a Charge HR, as I'm thinking of upgrading anyway?

segacs

Are you talking about downhill skiing or cross country? The Charge HR doesn't do a very good job at tracking downhill skiing either, since it can detect the elevated heart rate when you exert yourself, but it can't detect the motion properly and it usually tracks it as a (far off) step-based activity.

Also, depending on where you ski, downhill skiing often involves short bursts of activity (the runs) followed by longer periods of inactivity (lift lines, time spent going up the chair lift). If you're skiing at larger ski areas like the US or Canadian west coast, that might be less of an issue. But here in Quebec, downhill skiing is often 3/4 sitting time and less than 1/4 moving time. So tracking it manually as "skiing" doesn't really given an accurate representation either, because that assumes you're actually skiing the entire time, which isn't true. Point is, even an HR-monitor Fitbit won't accurately track that, because HR monitors are really only reasonably accurate for steady-state cardio, which skiing is most definitively not.

You could try putting your Fitbit into activity mode at the start of each run, stopping it at the bottom, and manually entering "skiing" for each run. Or, you could just estimate the amount of time you spend skiing in total using an app like Ski Tracks to get a rough idea of how much of your ski day is spent skiing, and guesstimate from there.

mathiar86

I've been playing social badminton. About 15min of activity followed by about 15-20min sitting (waiting for another game). I found the Fitbit tracked my activity based on my HR as three separate ~17-20min activities which I later categorized as badminton in the app. You aren't really doing a lot of steps but your HR goes up quite a bit. I imagine from when I've going skiing, especially if I'm doing a challenging run, my HR can definitely go up, so maybe that would work for you?

CariTJR

Hi, thank you for your responses -
@segacs - Yes, downhill skiing, in Europe, specifically Austria this time where there are a number of long runs, but I get your point about the lifts and waiting time. I was thinking along the lines of what @mathiar86 said, that the HR monitor would pick up the elevated heart rate and track it, then I could just label it 'skiing' in my log, where as with the Charge I have to do it all manually as it doesn't even (obviously) pick up the heart rate. Decisions decisions!
I will probably end up just keeping an eye on how long each run lasts, and how many runs I do in a day, and then just add it up and log that and see how that goes.
Thanks again for your input.

mathiar86

CariTJR wrote: »

Hi, thank you for your responses -
@segacs - Yes, downhill skiing, in Europe, specifically Austria this time where there are a number of long runs, but I get your point about the lifts and waiting time. I was thinking along the lines of what @mathiar86 said, that the HR monitor would pick up the elevated heart rate and track it, then I could just label it 'skiing' in my log, where as with the Charge I have to do it all manually as it doesn't even (obviously) pick up the heart rate. Decisions decisions!
I will probably end up just keeping an eye on how long each run lasts, and how many runs I do in a day, and then just add it up and log that and see how that goes.
Thanks again for your input.

How long is your HR up in each run though? Because of a run is only taking you 5min it may not register. My auto-recognition times are anything greater than 15min so that it doesn't count me walking across the road to the cafe as "a walk". Maybe look into the stats of your average run to see why it may not auto detect

segacs

That's not even the point though. It's not a limitation of the Charge HR or any other device. It's a misunderstanding of how heart rate can indicate exercise. Any exercise that's about short bursts of energy is not going to translate very well, because heart rate monitors are really only good at tracking and estimating calories from steady state cardio exercise. Skiing is never steady state cardio. So even if your Charge HR could detect the elevated heart rate during runs as exercise, it still wouldn't be able to give you a very good calorie burn estimate from it, because heart rate isn't a good indicator of calorie burn with short interval exercise.

stuartma

I've been using Ski Tracks to record my skiiing for a couple of years now and I've just finished creating a web service to import Ski Tracks runs into Fitbit as activites since the Ionic still doesnt have a skiing activity. If you've used Ski Tracks you just need to export the session as a SKIZ file and the service will do the rest.

The Fitbit API doesnt allow me to upload the GPS data to the activity, so instead the service bundles all the runs as TCX files them allows you to download them as a ZIP file.

SkiTracks to Fitbit Importer Please let me know if you find it useful

heybales

Ditto to @segacs comment.

If good estimate of increased calorie burn is the purpose - better to use something like @stuartma is mentioning.

This is the same issue with doing like running intervals, the Fitbit estimated by HR is inflated.
By accurate distance and overall average pace and time would be more accurate.
Only thing there is running intervals likely not to be all day long like skiiing - so the inaccuracy for 20-30 min is very minor.

I could see the skiing adding up to a decent big over-estimate of calories burned.
And then eating too much back at the lodge around the fire. Or perhaps spiking the hot chocolate too often! ;-)